World Week for Animals in Laboratories 2012

a photo taken inside a University of Washington animal laboratory

For one week in April of every year, animal activists and advocates in multiple countries organize together for World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WWAIL) to highlight the archaic and wasteful use of animals in biomedical research. Here in Seattle, the Seattle Animal Defense League, Action for Animals, and the Northwest Animal Rights Network have coordinated events; we encourage everyone to participate. Details are still being worked out, but they will be updated here as they are finalized.

SATURDAY, APRIL 21st (evening)
WWAIL kickoff!
Join us at a delicious vegan potluck where we will watch Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Following the movie we will have a brief discussion about the realities of life for animals in laboratories.
7:00-10:00
5615 12th Ave NE
(Facebook event page, RSVP and post dish you plan to bring)

MONDAY, APRIL 23rd
Demonstration at SNBL USA
3:00-5:00 pm
6605 Merrill Creek Parkway
Everett, WA
(Facebook event page)

TUESDAY, APRIL 24th
Demonstration at UW Infant Primate Research Lab
3:00-6:00 PM
Corner of NE Pacific St and Montlake Blvd

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25th
Outreach at the University of Washington
11:00 am-12:30 pm
Pedestrian Overpass, NE 40th and NE 15th

THURSDAY, APRIL 26th
Demonstration at UW
11:30 am-1:00 pm
1705 NE Pacific St.

 

Please join us in speaking up for laboratory animals and help spread the word!

Tags: laboratories, research, seattle, University of Washington, UW, WWAIL

Victory for Ferrets at UW

After being pressured from a campaign against the use of ferrets in pediatrics training, the University of Washington has now said that it has replaced the use of ferrets with human-based medical simulators to teach future pediatricians.

This change is the result of a campaign by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), with work on the ground by the Seattle Animal Defense League (SADL), as well as support by members of other local animal advocacy groups and activists, and the willingness of UW to adopt current best practices. This could not have been done without the tens of thousands of supporters from PCRM, SADL, the Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN) , and others who flooded UW administrators with e-mails and written petitions over the past year encouraging the school to take this progressive step. And UW finally listened!

A UW spokesperson stated that instead of ferrets “tetherless simulators are being employed at the point-of-care at the bedside to simulate resuscitations and enhance teamwork among healthcare providers,” and that ”simulation will be a more cost-effective way to train intubation techniques.”

Ferrets used in endotracheal intubation training at UW suffered through multiple intubations and were used for several sessions. Also, some of the animals used were later killed. Fortunately, the school has now joined the 95 percent of pediatrics residency programs in the United States that view nonanimal methods as not only more humane but educationally superior.

While this is indeed good news for ferrets, much more work needs to be done for the thousands upon thousands of other aniamls currently being used by the UW for research. Let us use this victory as a springboard to get more positive results for others.

Tags: ferrets, pcrm, pediatrics, physicians committee for responsible medicine, research, simulators

UW’s Lies About Killing Animals Exposed

Earlier this year, the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), along with the Northwest Animal Rights Network and the Seattle Animal Defense League, called upon the University of Washington to end the use of live ferrets in their pediatrics residency training. Since then, over 20,000 supporters have emailed the UW, and other supporters attended a visible demonstration in front of the UW Medicine building, which garnered media coverage. We’ve got their attention, but now there’s more to the story.

Documents that have been obtained through Washington’s public records law reveal that there is more going on at UW than previously expected. The PCRM discovered that the UW was telling the public one thing, while the opposite was true. The PCRM place an ad in the school’s student newspaper, alerting students and faculty that UW has been lying about killing animals.

A faculty member at UW told the Seattle Times earlier this year that the school had stopped killing rabbits for chest tube placement training, but the documents that PCRM obtained prove otherwise. UW has also claimed that the ferrets used in pediatrics residency training are adopted out, but documents reveal that numerous ferrets have been killed in the past three years.

The lying doesn’t stop there. UW has told the public that the use of ferrets in endotracheal intubation training is necessary, but according to internal communications the head of newborn medicine reportedly stated that the use of ferrets will end “because we can’t prove that they are any better than a training manikin.”

But this really shouldn’t come as a surprise as the UW has been investigated, cited, and fined over numerous violations in their animal-based medical and research programs. For the UW, this is par for the course. Please let the UW administrators know that lying to the public is unacceptable, and that they should end the use of animals.

PCRM ad in the UW's student newspaper, The Daily

UW Fined for Monkey Deaths in Primate Research Lab

Transcript of the October 18, 2011 news broadcast on Q13 FOX

SEATTLE—

Every year, tens of thousands of monkeys are used as test subjects in labs around the country.

Schools defend such experiments as essential to the advancement of medicine. The Department of Agriculture conducts annual spot inspections of these facilities and can step in when problems are identified.

In the past five years at the University of Washington’s Primate Research Center one monkey died of malnutrition, two more were found to be kept in cages that were too small and one scientist was fined for performing an excessive number of surgeries on the same animals. The incidents were uncovered after an anonymous complaint led to a USDA investigation.

“They finally got along to levying a fine which is $10,000 and the University gets millions of dollars in research money, so this is just a little drop in their bucket,” said Rachel Bjork with Northwest Animal Rights Network. “They like to say they are doing ground breaking research. They like to say they’re saving lives but I’m trying to understand the connection between sticking coils in a monkey’s eyes and saving a human life.”

The University released a statement responding:

“The University of Washington takes great care to ensure that their animals are healthy and well-maintained. Any time there is an unexpected death of a research animal, the UW reports the incident to the USDA and provides full disclosure. Our goal is to provide advances in medical care and treatment. The USDA recently visited the UW and found no deficiencies in its animal care program.”

The USDA is also investigating Oregon Health Science University’s primate research center, and has levied similar fines against Harvard Medical School, Vanderbilt and Princeton for violations that led to animal deaths.

“To do this research, it’s wasteful and the fact of what they’re doing to these animals should be criminal,” said Bjork.

The University of Washington paid a $10,893 fine in April 2011. The USDA says if repeat violations are found in future inspections, the University could face steeper penalties.

Original story with video

Demonstration to End Use of Ferrets by UW Medicine

Last February, the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, explaining that the University of Washington (UW) is violating the federal Animal Welfare Act by using live ferrets in its pediatrics residency program. In the pediatrics residency program at the UW breathing tubes are pushed down the throats of live ferrets to teach endotracheal intubation. This painful procedure is repeated numerous times on each animal and can cause tracheal bruising and bleeding. Non-animal training methods exist, making this use of animals not only cruel but completely unnecessary.

The SimNewB, manufactured by the Norwegian firm Laerdal and developed in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics, simulates newborn babies, and the Gaumard PREMIE Blue Simulator is designed to mimic the air way of a premature newborn. UW’s state-of-the-art Institute for Simulation and Interprofessional Studies (ISIS) owns SimNewB simulators. Both of these simulators are appropriate alternatives to using live ferrets for endotracheal intubation training.

More than 85 percent of pediatrics residency programs in the United States do not use animals. It is time for UW to join the majority. So far, responsible UW faculty and administrators have ignored pleas to change this practice. So now, the PCRM, in cooperation with the Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN) and the Seattle Animal Defense League (SADL), is taking this message to the school’s front door.

Please join us for a demonstration to let the University of Washington know that its use of live ferrets for pediatrics residency training is cruel and unacceptable.

Thursday, October 6 10:30am – 12:00pm
1959 N.E. Pacific St. near the main entrance of the University of Washington Medical Center

View Larger Map

Please also e-mail, write, and/or call UW School of Medicine dean Paul G. Ramsey, M.D and ask him to replace the use of animals in its pediatrics residency program.

Paul G. Ramsey, M.D.
Dean, University of Washington School of Medicine
1959 NE Pacific St.
Seattle, WA 98195
E-mail: pramsey@u.washington.edu
Phone: 206-543-7718

Demonstration Against AstraZeneca

Since 1999, there has been a global mobilization against one of the world’s largest and cruelest animal abusers, Huntingdon Life Sciences. Concerned citizens, activists and animal advocates worldwide have focused their efforts on shutting down this company that undercover investigations have revealed numerous instances of animal abuse and cruelty. This Thursday (8/25) and Friday (8/26) Seattle Animal Defense League (SADL) joins the fight. Please join us as we protest against AstraZeneca, a global pharmaceutical and biologics company headquartered in London, U.K. It is the world’s seventh-largest pharmaceutical company, has operations in over 100 countries, and is one of HLS’s largest customers. There are offices for AstraZeneca in downtown Seattle.

Thursday August 25
Friday August 26
Please meet at 2:30 pm each day at Tully’s on 4th and Union in downtown Seattle for a solidarity discussion. After the discussion, we will walk over to the site and demonstrate our disgust at AstraZeneca’s support of HLS.

Please spread the word to as many people as you can. Together we can make a difference and liberate the animals imprisoned within its walls.

For more information please visit: http://www.shac.net/AZAction/takeaction/index.html

PETA Targets UW with Anti-Vivisection Billboards

PETA takes vivisectors to task in a new aggressive ad campaign within Seattle. The ads were in response to the billboards from the Foundation for Biomedical Research that were up around Seattle, among other cities, in April during World Week for Animals in Laboratories.

PETA had intended to have these ads on outdoor billboards within downtown Seattle, but Clear Channel, the company that owns the billboards–and ran the ads in favor of animal experimentation by FBR–rejected them. Instead, the ads will be featured on mobile billboards and on top of gas pumps.

This campaign launched in April during WWAIL in Raleigh-Durham, N.C,  and also targeted other cities such as Boston and Los Angeles, who have prominent research universities that have heavily-funded animal experimentation centers. Seattle was chosen because of the number of animal laboratories within the city, many of them owned and operated by the University of Washington, who is one of the top recipients in the US for government-issued grants for animal experiments; $225 million of public money funded experiments on animals at the UW in 2010 alone.

The following are just three examples of the many experiments that have been conducted in Seattle:

• Rats who had their skulls cut open and their brains damaged were placed in boxes that shocked their feet in order to cause them to screech and induce fear in other rats who were forced to watch. They were then killed, and their brains were removed.
• Dogs had holes cut into their chests, had tubes inserted into their arteries, were forced to run on treadmills, and were then killed and dissected.
• In a sensory deprivation experiment, dozens of newborn monkeys were separated from their mothers, locked up alone in the dark, and forced to wear masks that allowed them to see only a display monitor. Three newborns died during the experiment; the others exhibited irreversible brain damage.

“Experimenters are raking in millions of dollars’ worth of public funds and using the money to cage, cut up, and kill animals,” says PETA Vice President of Laboratory Investigations Kathy Guillermo. “Whatever their stated goals, experiments on animals are about misery, pain, and death, and compassionate people don’t want to support this—financially or in any other way.”

She adds, “We have repeatedly shown that the University of Washington has violated animal protection laws.  With these ads we are simply drawing attention to what is going on.”

Day of Mourning for Animals in Laboratories

Primate experiment performed to research psychological stress

Sunday May 29th will be the second annual Day of Mourning for Animals in Laboratories. Each year untold millions of animals suffer and die inside animal research laboratories; numbers are at best a guess as many types of animals used in laboratories are not required to have accurate counts. They undergo painful procedures such as burning, suffocation, intentional gunshot wounds,  drug overdoses, contraction of diseases, starved, implantations, invasive surgeries, and much more, with fatality as a result — or at the end of the experiment, simply killed outright as they’ve outlived their “usefulness.”

As the University of Washington is home to several animal research laboratories both inside the main campus proper and scattered throughout Seattle, the Northwest Animal Rights Network will conduct a walking funeral procession along University Ave and end with a vigil in front of the Health Sciences building, where many animals have died and continue to suffer.

The meeting/staging area will be at the corner of NE Campus Parkway and University Ave, after which the assembled party will walk up and down University Ave, then through campus to a resting point in front of the Health Sciences building where a vigil and memorial will take place. Black/mourning clothes are encouraged.

Please take a couple hours out of your time to join the procession and vigil to honor the deaths of innocent individuals who have never been paid their proper respect.

SUN MAY 29 1:00-3:00pm
Meet at NE Campus Parkway and University Ave
For questions/more info: info [at] narn [dot] org

Pro-Research Billboard Corrected

Improved billboard

As reported in our previous post Pro-Animal Research Billboard Offers False Choice, billboards by a national lobbing group for animal-based research have appeared across the country, with a few here in Seattle. An anonymous posting on a local news forum alerted us to the “improvement” of one of the billboards located near the UW campus, correcting the false dichotomy the billboard suggests exists. The web address of this site was added to the billboard, but no-one affiliated with this site was responsible for this action. The billboard, corrected on April 19, was subsequently replaced April 26 with an ad for a local radio station.

Take Action: Urge Congress to Support the Great Ape Protection Act

The Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act (H.R.1513/S.810) has been re-introduced in the 112th Congress. This bill will end the use of chimpanzees for invasive research procedures, shut down federal breeding programs, and release federally-owned chimpanzees to permanent homes in sanctuaries.

The United States is the last country to use chimpanzees in large-scale invasive experiments, and while chimpanzees are our closest genetic relatives, there is still enough substantial differences in physiology, genetics, and susceptibility to diseases to make them poor models in research. Millions of dollars wasted and decades of research with inconclusive results  have shown that the use of chimpanzees has not provided any advancement towards cures that human-based research has provided. There are over 500 chimpanzees that are federally owned, and by releasing them to sanctuaries, the Great Ape Protection Act will save taxpayers $20-25 million annually.

The bill has the leadership of Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) as well as 42 cosponsors already signed on in the U.S. House, and Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) in the U.S. Senate.

Please take a moment and send an automated letter to your Senators and your House Representative to encourage them to support an end to the confinement and suffering of chimpanzees being used in experiments. The letter is programmed to be directed to your legislators that represent you in your area, and has the option of using a pre-written request or one that you’ve written.  Encourage others you know to sign on as well. Thank you.

Cross-posted at the Blog of the Northwest Animal Rights Network